WE, the Peoples of Brunei Darussalam, the Kingdom of Cambodia, the Republic of Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), Malaysia, the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, the Republic of the Philippines, the Republic of Singapore, the Kingdom of Thailand, and the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, the Member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), on the occasion of the 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); ACKNOWLEDGING the wealth of biodiversity in Southeast Asia, which comprises almost twenty per cent of the world’s biodiversity, even as it holds only three per cent of its land area, and that three countries in the region — Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines — are recognised as megadiverse countries, while Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam make up a large part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, making Southeast Asia one of the most biologically important regions on the planet;